Pride X Familiar ReVamp (Pride X ReVamp Book 1) Read online

  Pride X Familiar ReVamp

  Third Edition

  By Albert Ruckholdt

  2015 Copyright Albert Ruckholdt

  Kindle Edition

  Kindle Edition, License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Acknowledgments

  This is dedicated to my family and friends who supported me on this venture when it first began a few years ago when writing a novel became an undeniable dream.

  A special thanks to:

  Audrey, who read my early works no matter how dismal they were, and lied to me out of the goodness of her heart.

  Emma, who with her teenage outlook on life gave me the confidence to continue on the path I’d chosen.

  Shani, who edited and critiqued my work with a sharp tongue, keen eye, and a woman’s touch.

  My sister and her fiancé, whose quiet support I greatly appreciate.

  My mother, a precious, patient sounding board to the litany of complaints and self-doubt I expressed while writing this novel and its previous incarnations.

  And last but not least…

  …to the many readers at Royal Road Legends who gave me the feedback and support I needed to complete this work in its revised 2nd release:

  Blacky, Birdyman, Cend, Phalkor, Xtremeloldude, Ariakan662, mg021, Fallian, and many, many others.

  Table of Contents

  Preface

  Illustrations (maps, etc.)

  Reflections – 0

  Prologue.

  Reflections – 1

  Chapter 1

  Reflections – 2

  Chapter 2

  Reflections – 3

  Chapter 3

  Reflections – 4

  Chapter 4

  Reflections – 5

  Chapter 5

  Reflections – 6

  Chapter 6

  Reflections – 7

  Chapter 7

  Reflections – 8

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Reflections – 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Reflections – 10

  Chapter 13

  Reflections – 11

  Chapter 14

  Reflections – 12

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Reflections – 13

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Epilogue.

  Afterword.

  Preface.

  The decision to release “Pride X Familiar ReVamp” on Amazon Kindle raised the opportunity to revise the book.

  Presented here is the Third Revised Edition of Book One of the “Pride X ReVamp” series.

  Originally, this story was released for free back in May of 2015. It was then subsequently “serialized” on Royal Roads Legend (RRL) in an attempt to give it more traction in the on-line market. However, as part of the process of releasing on RRL, I discovered glaring grammatical errors, poor expressions, and a general lack of finesse to the overall prose, especially the climactic final chapters. So I took the opportunity to re-edit (with the help of Cend from RRL) and republish its more polished form on Royal Road, before re-releasing it into the ebook market…for free.

  With its release on Amazon Kindle, I chose to perform one more revision of the novel, and resolve outstanding issues with the content. Having written the next two books in the series, I grew aware of how elements in the story had changed and evolved from their original concepts as described in Book One. They were now more refined and precise. So I chose to take the chance to update Book One, thus bringing it in line with the succeeding two novels at a more conceptual level.

  This brings me to the following.

  Some of you may be aware there exists a novel by the title of “Pride X Familiar”. That novel was released back in mid-2014, and is an alternate telling of the story.

  So then what is “Pride X Familiar ReVamp”?

  Early in January of 2014, I was debating whether or not to release something that was clearly a light-novel written for those that enjoy Japanese Anime and Manga in all its diverse (and perverse) variations. “Pride X Familiar” was supposed to be light at heart, harem driven, with many of the aspects of shonen and shoujo anime and manga that fans of those mediums are familiar with. There’s the high-school setting, the student council, a salacious SC vice-president, the perverse hero, and the ubiquitous childhood friend (omitting the ever prevalent cousin-with-cousin relationships). It didn’t take itself seriously, and had enough plot holes to drive a truck through with room to spare.

  However, in the words of a close friend, she described it as “fun”. In fact, she recounted eating an entire tub of ice-cream in one night simply because she couldn’t put it down. Though I was reassured by her experience, I nonetheless panicked and rewrote the book into what became the first self-published “Pride X Familiar”. While the two versions of the story share a similar premise, the rewrite wildly digressed from the original vision, the original prose, and the original flavor.

  And that’s what bothered me the most.

  Somehow, somewhere along the line, the story lost its flavor.

  It lost its madness.

  It lost its perverse humor.

  And so, I decided to clean up, patch up, and tidy up the original release sufficiently to make it worth releasing…again.

  So, without further ado, I present the revised Kindle edition of “Pride X Familiar ReVamp”.

  Illustrations (maps, etc)

  Reflections – 0.

  To this day, nobody knows what triggered the Cataclysm.

  That’s what it came to be known, a word synonymous with both the massive trans-space shockwave, and the wholesale destruction that it caused.

  That shockwave hit the mass shadows of planets, stars, and a host of other celestial bodies.

  Anything with a substantial mass shadow that dimpled into the realm of trans-space was smashed to pieces.

  If you were on a planet, there was nowhere to run.

  The shockwave would shatter the world like a ball made of soft earth.

  Even large starships weren’t spared.

  Many of the super-liners and super-sized military fortresses perished when the trans-light shockwave struck their presence within trans-space.

  Racing out from an epicenter near the center of humanity’s galactic civilization, the shockwave wiped out billions in the span of a day. Millions more died in the days that followed, as the intersystem civilization was brought to an end.

  The Cataclysm brought a finale to humanity’s First Golden Age.

  It set the stage for the survivors to lay the foundations for the Second Golden Age.

  And the remains of those scores of shattered worlds, moons and stars became the material that fueled the expansion of the Hurakan Nebula.

  Nobody noticed when the Aventis appeared.

  By the time they did, it was already too late.

  They were everywhere and anywhere.

  From the very beginning they had infiltrated the newly founded United Systems Alliance and the neighboring Coalition of System States.

  The problem was that the Aventis looked just like us.
<
br />   That’s because they were us.

  They were human, but they were also something more.

  They were hosts to the Symbiote.

  It was the Symbiote that made the Aventis strong, fast, and hard to kill.

  Despite their lack of numbers, they quickly overwhelmed humanity, or should I say, the Regulars.

  So after a few years of struggling against the Aventis – who fell into eight distinct clans known as Prides – humanity gave up and raised the white flag.

  At least, that’s what history tells us. That’s what we’re taught in school. That’s what dramatic holovid re-enactments portray.

  The truth is a little different.

  The War of Supremacy wasn’t over in a flash. It lasted seven years and took place over hundreds of thousands of cubic light-years.

  It was fought inch by inch, light-year by light-year, and the tide of battle only turned in favor of the Aventis late in the war.

  The Alliance and Coalition united to form the Human Territories that subsequently became the Human Empire ruled by an empress with a heart of ice.

  The Aventis fought under a single banner, preferring not to make claims of territory as the war dragged on.

  That was two centuries ago.

  It’s a history that’s a little different from what people know today.

  I guess it can’t be helped. As the saying goes, history is decided by the victors, and that was the Aventis.

  Why they chose to rewrite history, is a mystery to me. Even knowing what I know today, I can’t fathom their reasons. But in saying that, I still have a long road of discovery ahead of me.

  My journey is far from complete.

  Thus, more than two centuries after the Cataclysm, people had all but forgotten the point of going to war against these superior humans. And the truth was, the Prides only went to war to ensure their own survival, but afterwards they managed – dare I say ruled – humanity pretty well.

  No wars. No conflicts. On the whole, a fairly stable economic and political environment.

  Of course, the Aventis remained at the top of the food chain, and Regulars remained one step below. They had preferential treatment in business, education, sports, and pretty much everything else.

  But it wasn’t all bad for the rest of humanity.

  Just not as good as it was for those that belonged to the Prides.

  However, the door to joining a Pride wasn’t closed.

  During their teenage years, a Regular human was tested for compatibility with one of the eight strains of Symbiote that uniquely characterized the eight Prides.

  Haruka was tested when she turned sixteen, and her body had a high compatibility with the Avenir Pride.

  I was tested too and my results showed negative – I’m talking less than zero – compatibility with all of the eight strains of the Symbiote.

  It’s like the damn things hated me as much as I hated them.

  I had my reasons for hating them. Maybe I should say they were reasons for resenting them. Looking back, perhaps I didn’t hate them as much as I thought and said that I did.

  But I certainly blamed them for what happened to my family.

  In truth, I was happy to be left out of the Prides.

  I just never figured I would fall into a third camp.

  You see, one day I found out I wasn’t as Regular as I thought I was.

  I was actually more like an aberration.

  An anomaly of great value to the Prides.

  But I wasn’t the only anomaly around.

  There were hundreds like me in the colony alone, and until I became one of them, I had no idea how important we anomalies were.

  Nonetheless, that did not make me feel any better about the situation I was dropped into.

  Prologue.

  (Caelum)

  Semester Two. Week One. Monday.

  Morning Homeroom Period.

  Today was the big day.

  Today was the day our results were electronically mailed to us.

  Today I would find out once again how dismally my compatibility rated with each of the eight strains of the Symbiote.

  And like the six other occasions in the past when the results came in, today was one day I hardly cared for.

  We had been tested at the end of the first semester of the school year, before being released into a well-deserved three week holiday period that delineated the first semester from the second.

  During that time the results of the medical exams were compiled, collated, and categorized into those that made the cut, and those that didn’t.

  I really wasn’t interested in being compatible with the Symbiote.

  I had no love for the Prides, and I had no love for the Aventis.

  I hated them, though lately my hatred has waxed and waned over the years, despite the most recent tragedy in my life.

  Even so, perhaps hate is too strong a word.

  Contempt was more fitting. A very cold and severe contempt.

  I had contempt for the privileged Aventis that were fortunate enough to become hosts for the Symbiote and rake in the benefits of harboring the thread-like organism in their bodies.

  Ah, who was I kidding…I hated them.

  Ten minutes before the end of homeroom, before the whole school was expected to attend the opening assembly for start of second semester, the teacher told us it was time to open up our results. Our esteemed Regular teacher dutifully informed us that our parents and guardians had been informed of our results, but right now it was our turn to find out whether or not we joined the privileged echelons of our society.

  Not caring, I accessed my results through the smart desk’s mail application.

  I read it, and then closed the file.

  No surprises there.

  A complete whopping zero mark on the compatibility scale.

  I looked around my classroom, smiling deceptively at my classroom friends, all the while wondering if anyone else had scored as poorly as I did.

  Some of my classmates were sharing their results with others.

  I saw a few smiles on the faces of the boys, and some of the girls were forming clusters as they revealed their successes to each other. However, the vast majority sat in disappointment and glared in envy at their more fortunate counterparts that numbered little more than two handfuls. But if you considered a just handful of lucky students in each class, spread across a number of school years, the total would amount to a sizeable catch for the Aventis. Take into account all nineteen schools for Regulars within the colony, and those numbers were clearly more than just a drop in the ocean.

  From what I’d read in the news reports, every year an average of two thousand teenage students in Pharos joined the ruling Aventis class.

  I turned in my chair and peeked at the back corner of the room that held special meaning to me.

  I noticed a cluster of girls had congregated around one table.

  Sitting at that table was a girl of slender, yet generous proportions especially for someone of her age.

  She had long, auburn hair that fell in lustrous waves down her shoulders and back. True to her nature, she wore a polite, cheerful smile as she looked up at the female classmates congratulating her.

  In that moment…my world sank.

  I knew that I would no longer share in failure with the one most precious to me.

  A heartbeat later and her eyes met mine.

  For a heartbeat her smile wavered, and I saw regret flash across her face, before she turned away and resumed smiling happily up at her friends.

  I turned back to my desk, and waited for the assembly bell to sound.

  It was a struggle to hold myself back from punching a hole in the middle of the smart desk’s tactile responsive screen.

  #

  (Caprice)

  Today was the big day.

  Today was the day I would introduce him to our Pride.

  That was the job entrusted to me by Arisa, my Lanfear Guardian.

  Upon
Arisa’s request, I was granted special dispensation by the Academy faculty, allowing me to leave class early, well before the afternoon lunch break was due to start.

  The extra time would come in handy.

  I was to depart Galatea Academy, situated in Island Three, and make my way over to a school for Regulars residing within Island Two.

  That meant a trip in a pressurized vehicle through the vacuum of space between the two asteroid Islands.

  Leaving the ‘H’ shaped building that accommodated the high-school students, I quickly walked over to the Academy’s parking lot near the west entrance.

  A passenger van had been sent for me.

  It was waiting for me with two very large, burly men dressed in black suits standing beside it. I found their proportions and appearance at odds with each other.

  Like the men were dressed, the van was painted black, though its shiny wheel rims contrasted sharply with its dark metal skin.

  I thought of it as conspicuous as a naked woman in a crowded train.

  I did not want to ride something that was more or less a painted target.

  With I sigh, I approached the vehicle and climbed inside. The men boarded shortly thereafter, and we were all quickly on our way.

  We left Galatea Academy behind, and travelled from one asteroid Island to the next.

  When the van fully pressurized for the trip through the intervening vacuum between the Islands, I had to endure the pressure on my ears.

  I had to endure it again, when the vehicle depressurized once it was safely within Island Two.

  A long tunnel connected the entrance to the asteroid to the nearest habitat within the Island.

  I watched the tunnel lights run by at great speed.

  From my seat in the passenger cabin, I glanced at the clock in the van’s center dashboard.

  Twenty minutes had elapsed since we departed Galatea Academy.

  I pressed down on my stomach, feeling it begin to rumble, reminding me that I’d skipped lunch.

  The tunnel opened wide as it merged with the habitat, and I saw the ubiquitous pyramidal buildings that served multiple roles as office complexes, shopping malls, and communal housing, to name but a few.